Vodafone broadband

Panos · 5 Aug 2017 at 02:31

Has anyone used it? Their current offer is pretty good and possibly save me £200 per year, while I have fibre over copper in the area. However how's their network and latency in general?

I am happy with Sky fiber atm, and latencies are small. 20-30ms on WOT for example.

Cheers

Rroff · 5 Aug 2017 at 02:52

IIRC one downside is you have to use their equipment which is a bit backwards in this day and age and the supplied router has a lot locked down - with some hassle you can get the details "probably" to use a 3rd party router but some people have hit a brick wall (I don't think that has changed in the last couple of months).

Other than that those that have it seem to think its pretty much the same as the standard offering from BT.

MichaelAwkward · 5 Aug 2017 at 06:43

I wouldn't use Vodafones services even if they paid me after experiencing how bad their customer service can be.

They aren't that cheap either.

neil_g · 5 Aug 2017 at 09:31

MichaelAwkward said:
I wouldn't use Vodafones services even if they paid me after experiencing how bad their customer service can be.

They aren't that cheap either.

Agreed.

We were flat out lied to and mislead by Vodafone. Wouldn't touch them with someone else's.

rubberduck · 5 Aug 2017 at 09:33

I've never really understood broadband but isn't there essentially just one set of equipment that you always use no matter which supplier you switch to? Of course different suppliers can put restrictions on your services but don't things mostly stay the same if you switch?

wildest_jjk · 5 Aug 2017 at 09:33

Rroff said:
IIRC one downside is you have to use their equipment which is a bit backwards in this day and age and the supplied router has a lot locked down - with some hassle you can get the details "probably" to use a 3rd party router but some people have hit a brick wall (I don't think that has changed in the last couple of months).

Other than that those that have it seem to think its pretty much the same as the standard offering from BT.

Out of curiosity what router do they supply? I'm picturing a Zyxel or something.

BigT · 5 Aug 2017 at 10:52

wildest_jjk said:
Out of curiosity what router do they supply? I'm picturing a Zyxel or something.

It's branded a Vodafone Connect and I have no idea who makes it. And it is pants and you're forced to use it. Can't wait to switch away from them when my contract is up.

wildest_jjk · 5 Aug 2017 at 10:59

BigT said:
It's branded a Vodafone Connect and I have no idea who makes it. And it is pants and you're forced to use it. Can't wait to switch away from them when my contract is up.

Ok thanks

What's wrong with it then?

Fubsy · 5 Aug 2017 at 11:10

The Vodafone connect is made by Huawei, and it's certainly not as bad as crap I've had in the past from BT, PlusNet (although I replaced this with 3rd party) and Sky.

Never had any downtime, latency is fine and not noticed any throttling or other service affecting tomfoolery. As such I haven't had the need to contact customer services, which is good because as above, it is ******* awful.

wildest_jjk · 5 Aug 2017 at 11:17

Fubsy said:
The Vodafone connect is made by Huawei, and it's certainly not as bad as crap I've had in the past from BT, PlusNet (although I replaced this with 3rd party) and Sky.

Never had any downtime, latency is fine and not noticed any throttling or other service affecting tomfoolery. As such I haven't had the need to contact customer services, which is good because as above, it is ******* awful.

Good old Huawei

PapaLazaru · 5 Aug 2017 at 14:02

Fubsy said:
As such I haven't had the need to contact customer services, which is good because as above, it is ******* awful.

VF broadband CS is UK based and is fine. In fact there are 2000 new UK cs jobs going at VF, as they are closing down a lot of the overseas call centres which were causing the problems.

KIA · 5 Aug 2017 at 15:41

Voda will give you your username and password.

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Bro...rd-party-router-on-Vodafone-VDSL/td-p/2561925

BigT · 5 Aug 2017 at 18:38

wildest_jjk said:
Ok thanks What's wrong with it then?

Poor wifi coverage despite being advertised as having some fancy beam forming tech and also once I had more than 25 devices connected to it, it would require constant resets. For the last year it's had another router sat behind it doing the heavy lifting and its has been OK, so I conclude it is too underpowered to handle lots of clients (at the moment it effectively has one). Also until recent firmware updates many normal router settings were hidden from the GUI e.g. Unable to turn off DHCP.

stoofa · 5 Aug 2017 at 21:41

Rroff said:
IIRC one downside is you have to use their equipment which is a bit backwards in this day and age and the supplied router has a lot locked down - with some hassle you can get the details "probably" to use a 3rd party router but some people have hit a brick wall (I don't think that has changed in the last couple of months).

Other than that those that have it seem to think its pretty much the same as the standard offering from BT.

This hasn't been the case for about two months now - you do need to tell them you're using something from the "BT approved list" even if you aren't, but then you get your username/password without issue.

As for cost. I'm still only paying £28/month for my up to 80mb connection. I believe new customers cannot get this price. I was also told that I was going to see a price increase starting August - that hasn't happened.